


Times Between

by Cafe_nina



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Introspection, One Shot, Pre-Relationship, Sleepy Cuddles, Soul knows he's a goner for her tho, like a lot, like they're not dating yet but they're kinda dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29692185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cafe_nina/pseuds/Cafe_nina
Summary: He keeps her right up against him, standing there long enough for her heat to leech into him, long enough that that lead in his chest lightens, like a part of him has been put back.An exhausted Weapon and Meister finally go home and go to sleep, Soul has some decidedly sentimental (mushy) thoughts about his Meister in the interim. T for cursing in here somewhere
Relationships: Maka Albarn/Soul Eater Evans
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43





	Times Between

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, the stress of life was enough to knock me all the way back into my Soul Eater phase, that’s pretty cool. Had this kicking around in my drafts, took a look at it today and realized it’s done. Enjoy fictional demi nerds feeling secretly very strongly about their “partner”
> 
> I don’t know exactly when this takes place, maybe close to or after the manga ends or maybe they’ve just been together a while, whatever tickles your fancy.

* * *

He is completely wiped. Motorbiking thrumming, it’s all he can do to drive coherently, safely, so he doesn’t really. He could not give less of a shit.  
  
The bike cuts off when he yanks the key, the desert wind that’s been whipping hot and nasty around his ears dies down, and the world is suddenly one noise less. He pauses, head hanging, shut eyes burning in grit and fatigue, the thrumming in his head easing ever so slightly. He feels Maka’s sigh against him just as he lets out his own. She’s been plastered back there since they took off. He’s not at all complaining, she’s about the only thing holding him together right now. For a while now actually, he can’t decide if he means the last few months or since always. One of those choices includes both sets of time so it’s probably that one. The Venn diagram is just one circle or some other bullshit recurring sappy thought about his Meister. Who knows, he’s tired.  
  
In any case the holding together phenomenon is incredibly literal right now, they’re parked and she hasn’t let go of him yet. And he’s nowhere near strong enough to pry her loose or tease her into shying away. Which he should, he can and should do either of those things, because otherwise he’d wait here like this for who knows how long, or something else that betrays how completely and totally whipped he is, and wouldn’t that be fun to explain.  
  
It would not. So he lays a hand on hers, one of the ones crossed over his middle, taps it once or twice, hopes that prompts a reaction. Hopes that his unwillingness to move comes across lazy and not desperate. Just when he musters the energy to open his mouth and ask for a sign of life, she moves. Fingers part and knobby knuckles move to meet worn calluses, his hand closing around hers. His body knew before his mind supplied the thought.  
  
No gloves, just sweat and skin and scars and warmth. He turns their hands over and around, not content with just holding. He has to search, prod, push his luck. Because it’s always so much and still not enough. There, he brushes it with a thumb, right there is the groove where he fits. Even with the gloves and the lotions and the hand massages, he still leaves a mark. A fold, a bend in her skin at the top of her palm. He’s a part of her in a way that no one else is. He’s not quite proud, it’s more mild than that. Satisfaction then, the cat that got the cream. Weird maybe, but sue him, he is weird.  
  
There is a distant interest, a muted feeling of curiosity behind the fading pounding behind his temples. Not alien but not his. Hers. A vague connection. A quiet resonance. No intention or demand, just open. A straight path, a seamless line, a clear note, right to her. Easy, naturally, he hadn’t even realized. They don’t even have to try. Remember when they had to make an effort to connect? Now they’re bound together so effortlessly that he can’t even find the line between their respective exhaustion. He can feel it like it’s puddled up somewhere beneath them. A bruise on her becomes a bruise on him. If he searches his brain long enough he can find the distinction, cut themselves back into two different people, but he kinda doesn’t want to.  
  
He draws the rest of the line, plays their chord, shoulders rising as her chest caves along him. Then the breath goes out, a different kind of sigh, and through that pool of weariness that he’s trying not to drown in there is a hum of ease. And then a tinge of regret. She must be making that pinched expression behind him as she leans back, taking her hold with her. He hopes his disappointment isn’t so palpable. He looks over his shoulder, a muscle somewhere protests (his). As predicted her brow is all scrunched up, lips pulled down in a sharp frown as she massages her temple. She aims a dubious glare at him and inwardly he shrugs so his poor ol’ body doesn’t have to.  
  
She groans but it lacks any real heat then snatches his hand back up and starts to lead him up and away. “Come on.”  
  
A brush of quiet concern from her hand to his. A pulse of gentle gratitude, him to her.   
  
One more key, one more turn, they step in the door and they’re home. And it smells like them and he’s seen the way the light falls across the room like that this time of day a thousand times. Except this time it makes something in his chest clench, a pang like the one in his bones. They’re home, home for a while, for the first time in who knows how long but it felt like centuries. It reminds him of the symphonies that he would get dragged to, part of his “cultural enrichment”, and absolutely _not_ his thing (okay, except for the ones that were, but those were few to say the least). He does remember those moments between pieces, where the orchestra would go silent, as if it had been cut like a cord, after it had all come crashing to a near deafening conclusion, and the music would still hang thick in the air and press on him. That moment felt like infinity, where every string, horn, key, all of it washed over and the realization of what had happened, the gravity of the performance, would settle on his shoulders in the soundless aftermath. Never there very long before the room would implode, the phantom of music that scattered with cheers.  
  
This is the moment before the applause.  
  
It feels as though they’ve been paused, like at any minute the world will eventually restart and be ending all over again. It hadn’t, not for a while, which means they won, right? The mind affirms but the body, the soul, says _prove it._ _  
_  
He doesn’t mean to bump into her, caught in the forward momentum, but she’s gone stock still. That makes no sense, he’s forever aware of her, naturally, in ways he doesn’t even understand. So maybe it isn’t an accident, he has to touch her then. Press lightly against her back, feel her breathe in. She must have needed him, called for him, because she turns and rests against his chest, arms loosely winding around him, not five minutes after letting go the first time. That weight in him weighs heavy but with her he enjoys the pull. He slides around her. He needs her too. Didn’t even realize he was repeating that somewhere inside himself, a track set on loop.  
  
_I’m here._  
  
_Closer please_. He breathes and his hands slide up across cotton, past ribs, graze her spine, just so his arms fit around her shoulders. So her chin can balance on his collar, barely. She huffs, warmth across his neck, complaining. _Too tall._ His fingers pull her chin down so his head can rest on hers. _Sorry._ Hard to hide his grin while tethered to her. He keeps her right up against him, standing there long enough for her heat to leech into him, long enough that that lead in his chest lightens, like a part of him has been put back.  
  
A beat, many more. She wants, no has to, let go again, a list running through her mind. Study, shower, sleep.  
  
_Stay._  
  
Her head turns toward the couch. It’s smothered with flattened pillows with an old red blanket complete with stale crumbs tossed across it. The same red blanket that they perpetually steal from each other when it gets cold. So the very picture of heaven.  
  
“I should really do something…”  
  
The phantom leaves, spell broken as she murmurs about work, hand unwinding from his shirt. He hums belated acknowledgment against her crown, eyes shut. Trying too late to recapture the stillness.  
  
“I could get you meds for your head.”  
  
He knocks a calf against hers, herding her, and she doesn’t fight it so much.  
  
“I’m all gross.”  
  
Her knees fold against the cushions and their entwined grip means he’s not far behind her.  
  
“And you’re gross.”  
  
A hums as if offended this time, pulls away, threatening, with no intention at all of letting her go. The threat is enough apparently. The rush of satisfaction when she pins him back to her, out of panic or instinct, is nearly dizzying, or he is dizzy, and it shoves a stilted laugh out of his chest. They crash into a pile with her somewhere underneath him and if he had the energy he would probably feel some type of way about it but for now muted appreciation will have to do.  
  
“Don’t laugh at me, I’m tired.”  
  
“Go to sleep then.” There are a lot more consonants in that sentence than he was expecting. Who cares he’s busy getting lost in the back of his eyelids and the sweep of her neck.  
  
“Soul.”  
  
“Maka.”  
  
A thrum of self consciousness, as she starts to settle, the scrape of bone against bone deadened by flesh. Her legs still fit on the couch but not his. She’s fidgeting, fighting, always, but losing for once. She’s all elbows and edges and he knows it’s hard for her to be gentle sometimes, hard for her to not overthink _everything_. Funnily enough as the weapon he’s the one tempering her sharp edges. He takes her arms by the wrists, keeping his eyes closed when he wraps them around his sides, then bonelessly collapses on top of her. Finds out he’s tired to the point of stupidity when his lips brush the fabric across her collar bone. (She gasps very quietly but doesn’t push him off and _huh._ Isn’t that interesting.) Maybe all this death and doom stuff is getting to him because he feels like he could tell her everything and that’d be enough for him.  
  
Or maybe he’ll murder her, who knows what will happen if she won’t stop kicking him in the goddamn shin, just _stop fucking moving, just go to sleep Maka, for Death’s sake I’ve killed for less than this_!  
  
“Alright!” She snaps, whirling away, too much moving. and taking her arms back to fold across her chest.  
  
He groans into the back of her neck now, spitting out hairs, spell most definitely broken. “Could you just pretend you’re not some perfect nerdy battle machine for like half an hour please?” No, whining, he’s whining. And trying to prod her arms open so that they can fit around him again.  
  
“Perfect huh?” Over her shoulder she looks back over at him, an eyebrow raised. And a greater man would have risen to the challenge, turned it around and had some witty retort that saw his skull probably meeting the spine of a book. No, he is the clever-er man, who has learned how to lose the battle to win the war. But also with his head pounding the way it is he is completely unarmed for a battle of wits against her.  
  
“Yes, perfect and smart and bruising the hell out of my legs because you’re so powerful and kickass now please can we go to sleep?”  
  
She turns luxuriously slowly back into him, trying for put upon while looking too pleased. He manages to put his chin in his hand, trying to look as annoyed as possible, playing the part but neither of them is being very convincing. Lethargic as it is his heart still stumbles when she lifts up a hand to mess with a loose strand of his bangs. “You must be tired.” She says, allowing a soft smile to escape.  
  
“Tired not blind.”  
  
With a quiet laugh, one where her breath rushes past his cheek, she tugs on a strand. If he’s lucky she’ll start running her fingers through his hair, fitting for the absolute dog that he is.  
  
“Go to sleep.” she hums with finality.  
  
“Now there’s an idea.” He shuts his eyes just as her fingers bury in his hair. Then the music starts to play again.

**Author's Note:**

> Perpetually stuck writing for angry powerful kids who love way too much but are too emotionally constipated to say it out loud. i think i've got a type guys.
> 
> This was intended to be very soft sort of continuous introspection, tried some new things this time, but I couldn’t resist the banter. Thanks for reading! stay safe out there, talk to me about Soul Eater i miss them


End file.
